The present invention relates to an apparatus for and method of trapping or capturing insects, preferably without killing them.
1. Technical Field
The invention relates to agriculture and entomology, although not exclusively to those fields.
2. Description of Previous Insect Traps
A variety of insect traps have been invented and employed, although the vast majority of these traps kill and often disfigure the insects. Most of these earlier insect traps, for example, employ some form of adhesive material to trap their quarry, and in so doing coat the insect body (or its parts) with said adhesive material thus obscuring the body (parts) and impairing the ability to identify the dead insect. There have been trap designs that do manage to capture some insect species without killing them. These traps generally use attractants such as pheromones or kairomones usually in combination with a type of mechanical funnel structure. Unfortunately, such traps are of quite limited utility because relatively few insect species can be attracted by (known) pheromones or kairomones, and not all insect species exhibit the behavior necessary to make them susceptible to being trapped by a funnel-like device. Therefore, for the vast majority of insect species, no traps have previously been available which can capture them alive and intact. The present invention solves this problem, permitting the capture, retention, and subsequent identification of live insects which can then be used for a variety of purposes such as research or simply for the transportation of such insects to another location.
The present invention is an apparatus or device used to trap live insects. It is essentially a container or vessel, open on one end, having an insect attractant placed therein or directly above, with at least one layer of parallel strings or lines spread across the open end. The distance between the individual strings or lines is slightly larger than the width of the body of the target insect, and preferably smaller than the wingspan of said target insect, which thus operates to prevent escape once the insect is inside the trap.
Objects and Advantages. The present invention has as its object the capturing of live insects. This gives the researcher, farmer, hobbyist, or anyone else a tool that was not previously available. Scientists studying a particular insect pest, for example, often need a steady supply of such insects on which to conduct research. Farmers or gardeners may have a need to identify a particular type of insect pest in order to take appropriate counter-measures. On the other hand, some insects are beneficial and it is therefore desirable to have the means to capture them at one location and then to transfer them to another location. Others may simply be interested in capturing live insects for their own purposes. This invention thus enables the scientist, farmer, and others to secure a supply of live insects. A further advantage of this invention is that it is renewable and reusable whereas other insect traps which employ adhesive are intended for xe2x80x9cone timexe2x80x9d use and generally lose their effectiveness over time. Other advantages and aspects of the invention will become apparent from the following description and drawings.